Council urged to pass Iraq funding resolution

MC-Germantown forum draws 150

Peace activists were urged to pressure the Montgomery County Council to pass a resolution favoring an immediate withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq during a forum at Montgomery College-Germantown on Monday.

Speakers at the town hall meeting, which drew about 150 people, said the proposed County Council resolution faces an uncertain future until Council President Mike Knapp (D-Dist 2) of Germantown, agrees to place it on the council agenda.

"It's all procedural. The first order of business is to put it on the agenda," said council member Valerie Ervin, (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring, who authored the resolution. Ervin appeared on a panel with fellow councilmen Marc Elrich (D-At Large) of Takoma Park and Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large) of North Bethesda, who also favor its passage. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) served as moderator.

Knapp did not attend the meeting.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, he said he opposed the Iraq war, but doubted the county should be involving itself in an issue more commonly linked to the President and Congress.

"I think it is time for us to begin withdrawing from Iraq, but I'm not sure Montgomery County taking a position on foreign policy or defense policy is something we should be doing," Knapp said. "I do think it is outside the purview of the county government."

Several people at the meeting said the resolution has encountered opposition from those who doubt its relevance in county government.

"Mr. Knapp has said he opposes the war, but he does not regard it as county business. We're here to change that," said Pat Salomon, a coordinator of PeaceAction Montgomery, one of 15 organizations that sponsored the event.

While much of the discussion focused on the economic costs of the war, Leggett, who served as an Army captain in Vietnam, decried the human toll.

"What you don't see is the other side of war, the side of destruction, the side of death," he said.

Patrick K. Lacefield, a spokesman for Leggett, said Tuesday that the county executive supports the resolution in principle, although "there are some things he might want to change."

Most of the speakers focused on the war's economic effects in arguing why the council should consider the resolution relevant to county government.

Brandon O'Flaherty, an economics professor from Columbia University in New York City, cited the enormous costs of the war to taxpayers at all levels government. He said the federal government has been forced into borrowing trillions of dollars to pay for the war, money that will have to be paid back.

The strain of repaying the war debt will damage the ability of all governments and citizens to pay for programs and activities in the future, he said.